From the Desk of … Jessica Smith

This week I asked poet Jessica Smith to share a picture of her desk and answer the question: Messy or clean?

My desk isn’t messy, it’s an archive. I work at multiple desks, but mostly I work at my desk at work, which is a kind of archeological site of student work, artwork inherited from various former employees, piles of work I need to do or papers to grade or books to catalog or weed, little gifts, and talismans. I think of it like the garbage woman’s house in Labyrinth. Appropriately, most of my poetry has to do with memory and mnemonics. – Jessica Smith